the gremlins took the socks again
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: His body is sore and stiff and won't improve fast enough for a mind that is just so, so fed up with everything and its own shortcomings. Kentin-centirc. Takes place during his military school detour. Whump. Disjointed crap.


**Author's Note: This is just a mediocre, worthless, self-indulgent vent crap. Serves as a continuation of a sort to_ lavender (maggots) popcorn—_ but stands alone. Disjointed, cryptic, drabble-ish nothingness instead of a coherent one-shot. **

**Warning for bullying and whatnot e3e**

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><p>VI.<p>

Lemons.

The floorboards smell like lemons.

Kentin realizes this as blood tickles his upper lip and a combat boot toes the tumid skin under his ribs.

"Get up," barks a voice like steel wool.

_Lemons. _

It must be the type of cleaner the custodians use, Kentin thinks, though the scent is decidedly less masculine than the venison-scented cleaner he would assume this facility would covet.

"I said get up!" The boot starts kicking and doesn't stop until the reluctant whimpers have scraped Kentin's throat raw.

Later his roommate raises a brow at the petal of crimson on the (lemony) floor.

But he doesn't ask and Kentin's too embarrassed to answer.

V.

Kentin is capable of doing four chin-ups.

When he first arrived, he was capable of doing none.

Nothing makes for encouragement like disappointed fathers and wolves snapping at your heels.

But four chin-ups isn't enough to satisfy disciplined coaches or feral, flickering bulbs with pupils that Kentin sometimes swears are slitted.

His body is sore and stiff and won't improve fast enough for a mind that is just so, so fed up with everything and its own shortcomings.

Kentin eats more fists than he does food.

Julien has obscenely hairy, apelike knuckles, but he prefers them to tasting the dry, puckered scabs on Leo's.

IV.

Dazzling white spikes through Kentin's vision as he doubles over on his knees, air torn from his lungs.

"Lick it." This voice is splitting ice and the sole of another boot — dirtied by dog dung — forces its way into his face.

He gags, eyes watering as the foul stench floods his senses into roiling nausea.

"Lick it or else." The brick is behind him; there is no where to go.

The tip of his pathetic tongue pokes out and grazes the vile, cold, yellow-brown lump and never has he ever been so stricken with revolt.

He turns his head away and closes his lips tightly, fearing that his dinner will come up any second now as the dense, detestable reek clings to the back of his throat.

"If you don't do this now, you're gonna be sorry later." Clara's eyes are tundras and Kentin can't believe he ever thought they were pretty.

Licking up dog shit is worse than eating worms, but if she could come up with both of those, there is not a single doubt in his mind that she could come up with something worse.

III.

Twenty push-ups is a record for him.

Twenty push-ups is not impressive in a place where fifty is expected of you every morning, before and after breakfast.

He keeps a stiff upper lip and strives to bench mountains.

He'll get there, one day, he promises he will.

But one day is not today and Kentin remains at the bottom of the food chain.

As his lunch is stolen, he does not resist, he simply tells himself the food here is bland.

It's not like eating is that appealing when you have a bruised jaw, anyway.

II.

The showers are cold.

Kentin feels immensely uncomfortable with the fact that they are communal and sometimes he skips them out of a fear he excuses as sincere better judgment.

He can't see a foot in front of his face without his contacts and he feels ten times as vulnerable when he has to take them out before stepping under the spray.

He gets so many towel-snaps, he can't help bitterly wondering if he has a birthmark the shape of a target on his ass.

Kentin read a story in the Amoris school paper, a story about a student's dog that died (even if he didn't like Peggy, he could appreciate her animal rights' advocacy to print such an irrelevant thing) after eating a bar of antibacterial soap.

As he's pinned to the wet tile and a thick, acerbic bar is jammed into his mouth, curling where it's scraped by his teeth and turning his saliva to suds, he can't help wondering if it's antibacterial and if he's going to die.

He isn't a dog, but how different can their bodies be?

He feels lower than the scruffiest stray cur when he gets out of the shower and finds that someone has pissed in the bottle of his contact solution.

I.

Kentin makes it through the entire east-wing obstacle course for the first time.

He still has the slowest timing out of everyone in his class, but he did it the whole way through.

He does not feel very accomplished.

He's nervous.

He's never really fought back before, never felt like he could.

But he'll be able to soon if he keeps this up.

He should feel relieved, pumped for vengeance, planning ahead.

Instead he's confused and conflicted, a tornado in his gut and a broken clock in his head that has the cuckoo bird cawing every twitch of the crooked secondhand.

0.

When he finally gets a replacement phone (who was it that threw his first one against the wall? Mael? Odetta?), he sees a message from Candy and his heart skips ten beats.

He opens it with eager eyes and hopeful blossoms in his belly.

When he reads it, he just wants to throw the phone against the wall again, but settles for dropping it on his bed.

He's shocked, he's seething, but mostly he's hurt.

A cattle prod through the heart is all the motivation Kentin needs to practice payback now and perfect it later.

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><p><strong>And now to get my shoddy ass back to requests.<strong>


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